The Botterm Dollar In News #17

Columns, News

Short column this week, folks. Army business is taking up most every bit of free time I have right now, and this column suffers for it. Luckily for me, there’s really not much in the way of breaking news going on anyway.

THE SONIC DEATH MONKEYS

This is my weekly fantasy football team recap. If you don’t like fantasy football or just prefer to read the wrestling report, skip on down to where it says “WWE Notebook” and begin there. I won’t hold it against you.

I lost 93-60 this week. I was playing the #1 team in my league and didn’t think I had a chance of winning, and it turned out that I was right. Tiki Barber was the only guy on the squad that performed up to expectations; Drew Bledsoe was Drew Bledsuck against the Eagles, so that hurt in a big way. I got little to nothing out of my wide recievers and would have lost by a much larger score, but my ploy with San Francisco’s defense against the Raiders worked out perfectly, and I ended up with 18 points from them.

I dropped Bledsoe like a bad habit on Monday morning, but decided to use the same type of ploy I used last week with San Fran’s D. Since the Cowboys are playing the Texans, I got Bledsoe off waivers and I’m going to start him again this week. Hey, it’s a smart move; the Texans are giving up, on average, over 300 yards per game through the air, and you just KNOW Bledsoe, Terry Glenn and T.O. are going to go OFF this week.

Here’s my starting lineup for the week:

QB: Drew Bledsoe
WR: Terry Glenn
WR: Andre Johnson
RB: Tiki Barber
RB: Reggie Bush
TE: Ben Troupe
FX: Marion Barber III
K: Mike Vanderjagt
DEF: San Diego

Yes, my lineup this week is heavily dependent upon the Cowboys killing the Texans. And yes, I’m from Houston. I don’t consider myself a traitor, though, because the Texans officially killed any loyalty I might have had to them when they passed on Reggie Bush and drafted Mario Williams.

Let’s get down to business.

>> WWE NOTEBOOK <<

— The Survivor Series main event is currently set to be Cena/HHH/Michaels vs. Booker/Batista/Mysterio vs. Big Show/RVD/Sabu, but that will change (at least on the Smackdown side) because Mysterio will be leaving in the next two weeks to have knee surgery. There was talk of putting Kennedy in that spot, but they’ve decided to continue the Undertaker program, so it’ll have to be someone else. My guess is either Lashley or Finlay, but we’ll know more in the coming weeks as to what they’re really going to do.

— In regards to the Kennedy/Undertaker program, it’s most likely scheduled to go for three more PPV’s. They are looking to get Kennedy over as a true main event player by the time WrestleMania rolls around, and there’s not really anyone in the company other than Taker that can give him that kind of credibility in a short period of time.

— Francine was released. Vince McMahon was never a big fan of her look (who is?), but they needed someone to do the bikini contest gimmick with Kelly at house shows, so they kept her around. She’s not expected to go to TNA.

— John Cena’s merchandise is outselling DX gear by a ratio of 3 to 1 at house shows, which might be why they’re plugging the merch on television all the time.

— There’s still a lot of talk about sending Carlito to ECW. He’s completely played out on Raw, but they’re still high on him and would rather have a place to actively use him than to pay him to sit at home because they don’t have any ideas for him.

— The company has hired Minnesota indy worker Magnus Maximus. He’s worked dark matches for the company before, most notably with Brock Lesnar before Lesnar ever appeared on WWE television, so it’s apparent that he’s been on the radar for quite some time.

— Marty Wright (Boogeyman) was rehired by the company. He was fired for some behavioral tendencies and bad habits that were driving people crazy behind the scenes, but WWE called him up last week and explained the reasonings behind his firing and told him they’ve give him a second chance if he’d work on those shortcomings, so they brought him back. It’s not often that you find a guy who’s willing to do absolutely anything to get a character over, so it was only a matter of time before they brought him back anyway. He’ll be living in Houston and training at Booker T’s wrestling school.

— WWE has decided against jumping into the high-definition era at this moment in time. There will come a point (2009, I believe) when every single piece of programming over the airwaves and cable will have to be HD; it’s government-mandated, so there’s only so long that WWE can avoid taking the plunge. They’re going to hold off as long as they can, though, because there’s a lot of opposition to it within the company. The reasoning is that by going high-def, they’re going to expose a lot of little tricks and practices of the industry. People who can’t really throw a convincing punch will instantly look like an amateur, and the amazing increase in clarity could give away things like calling spots and blading. The company has stated that, for the time being at least, they’re going to continue testing HD. They’ve got an extra crew at the Raw shows working on developing new camera angles and production tendencies in order to compensate for the increase in picture quality and clarity.

>> TNA NOTEBOOK <<

— The new contract for Kevin Nash is believed to have come about because he gave a bunch of good booking ideas to Vince Russo, and Russo pushed for him to be brought back. Nobody else in the company was going to bat for Nash, but Russo feels like he can salvage the X-Division angle with Nash around, so they gave him another chance. There’s also a feeling backstage that TNA is trying to stock up on as many top guys as possible, regardless of when they actually were a top guy.

— Regarding Russo, it’s being said that he hasn’t watched any type of wrestling (TNA included) in the past six months, so he has no real idea of storylines that have been going on. He’s been filled in by Jeff Jarrett and others on everything he’s missed so he doesn’t book something completely illogical.

— The mood backstage at the Impact tapings was one of excitement and elation. Most of the guys are thrilled about having Kurt Angle on the roster because they feel like it gives them some legitimacy in a business where they have almost none. Angle was extremely friendly with everyone backstage and told several people that his ultimate goal was to convert every WWE fan into a TNA fan.